


Ocean in a Bottle

by EchoResonance



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-10 08:40:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7838059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoResonance/pseuds/EchoResonance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy was used to being the strong one, the protective one, the one that looked after everyone else. It was in his nature to act okay even when he wasn’t, even when no one was convinced. But he and Nico both had been running from their problems for too long. They needed to talk. About a lot of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Nico didn’t mean to get pulled into Percy’s nightmare. One moment he was blissfully unencumbered by dreams or reality, and the next he was standing in the last place he would ever want to be. Tartarus was vivid in Percy’s mind, the smell just as awful and the air just as toxic, burning Nico’s eyes and lungs and blistering his skin.

At first Nico thought he was in his own dream, as it wouldn’t have been the first time Tartarus had come back to haunt him. He too had stood on the edge of Chaos and he too had dealt with the goddess of misery, Alkhys. But the Curses had not descended on him. He remembered why, clear as day.

 _What more could I do to you_ ? she’d sobbed gleefully--he hadn’t known that was possible until she did it. _You’re perfect! So much sorrow and suffering!_

The Curses closed around the dreamer and Nico swallowed around a cold stone in his throat as Percy sliced through the monster nearest Annabeth, who stood without a weapon. The creature dissipated, but it left Percy something to remember it by: matching wounds on his side, as if an arrow had been shot straight through him. The son of Poseidon cried out but didn’t flinch, didn’t fall, didn’t waver. Of course not. He cut down another monster. And another. And another. More wounds appeared across his body, but he kept fighting, determined to protect the girl he’d fallen into Tartarus for.

Nico could feel Percy’s fear and it amplified his own. Neither of them were actually back in Tartarus. They both knew that. But the place terrified them all the same, and no amount of lucidity would prevent Percy from doing what he did best when he was scared and outmanned: attacking everything in front of him to protect what was behind him. Unfortunately, while Nico would have been more than happy to try and force them _both_ awake, he didn’t get a chance. Hell itself dissolved around them.

Nico wasn’t allowed to relax, because it reformed moments later, only now Annabeth was nowhere to be seen and Percy… Percy had snapped. He was laughing, but not from humor. He was in hysterics, hands out before him, trying to control a puddle of _something_ on the ground. It was crawling slowly away from him and everything around it died as it oozed towards none other than the goddess of misery herself.

If Percy controlling the puddle of not-water-probably-poison hadn’t clued Nico into the fact that something was very wrong, seeing Alkhys did the trick. The withered woman with tears and blood and snot combining in a permanent cascade down her cheeks was scrabbling at her face and throat, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. She looked like she was drowning. Something inside Nico twisted and then simply disappeared when he realized that that was _exactly_ what was happening. Somehow, Percy had taken control of the goddess’s own body fluids and was smothering her with them, his expression sick and frantic as though he knew what he was doing was wrong but he couldn’t stop.

But he needed to.

“Percy!” Nico roared.

Percy stiffened and whipped around. When he saw Nico, the dream seemed to fracture and blur, but it hung together. His arms fell to his sides.

“Percy, that’s enough,” Nico said, softer now that he had Percy’s attention.

“Nico…?” Percy mumbled. “What--how--”

“Wake up,” Nico interrupted. “You need to wake up.

“Yeah, why don’t I just do that?” Percy snapped. The panicked light was still in his eyes, and his hands trembled violently. “The thought hadn’t occurred to me, man!”

“Listen to me,” Nico growled, channeling all his power into his words. “And _wake. UP!_ ”

Nico shot bolt upright in his own bed. His heart raced and sweat covered him in a slight sheen, but he didn’t waste time wiping himself down. He threw his blankets off of him and leapt to his feet, forgoing shoes and sword alike as he marched to the door of his cabin and flung it open to meet the dark camp. It was still night, but he barely spared the patrol harpies a thought as he slunk to Cabin Three, whose occupant would have just woken up himself in a similar state to him: panicked.

The low-slung, weather-worn cabin with the large bronze 3 gleaming on the front was among the more approachable of the cabins. He crept onto the porch unnoticed and rapped on the door hard enough to make his knuckles throb. There was a loud noise inside, followed by a muffled curse, and Nico had a clear image in his mind of Percy trying to leap to his feet and merely tumbling to the floor from his bed. His lips twitched, but his amusement was short lived.

There was no further answer, as if the occupant wasn’t daring to breathe.

Whatever the reason, the rest of Percy’s friends had more or less left the son of Poseidon to his own devices since the battle had ended, occasionally knocking on his door and leaving when they received no response. It made Nico angry, how easily they gave up, but he understood. Everyone had their own troubles, their own problems, and in the daylight Percy had seemed fine. Chipper, even. But this had happened after the Battle of Olympus as well. Victorious they might have been, but Percy always had trouble celebrating in the face of so many lives lost. It was a trait Nico rather respected in Percy, though at times it made it hard for anyone to reach out to him to help.

But someone had to try. Even if Nico would truly be anywhere else short of Tartarus, he had to try. He hated it, but even after everything, he needed Percy to be alright. Needed him to be strong and brave and the amazing hero that he’d always been, that Nico still remembered so vividly from that night eons ago. He’d been disillusioned and he understood that Percy, however extraordinary he might be even for a demigod, was still just a person. He was capable of human weakness, no more worth idolatry than any other person. Still, he couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Percy alone as he was, wrapped up in his own head and thinking of all the things he could have or should have done.

“Percy,” he said coolly, rapping his fist on the door again. “It’s me.”

There was a pause, and then a quiet series of noises on the other side of the door. The rumple of bedclothes, the scuff of bare feet on the wooden floor. There were soft footsteps on the other side of the door, and the click of the mechanism turning. Then it swung open.

Ebony hair and eyes the same maddening blue-green of a warm sea, looking slightly down at him from a rather haggard, slender face. Back when they’d first met, Percy hadn’t been pale exactly, but his skin had been fair. After months of traveling out at sea, it was just shy of matching the Celestial Bronze of his sword Riptide, cheeks spattered with little freckles. Normally, it could’ve been said that the time at sea had done wonders for his appearance, but his eyes were sunken from sleepless nights and his lips peeled--from dehydration or too much sun, it was hard to say, though calling the sea god’s sun dehydrated seemed strange. His hair was even more of a mess for tossing and turning and there was unchecked stubble sprouting around his jaw. He didn’t seem particularly surprised to see the son of Hades. When he looked at Nico, he gave a weak echo of his trademark devil-may-care smirk.

“What’s up, man?” he asked. His voice rasped in his throat. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping like the others?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Nico pointed out, tone a bit sharp. Percy’s lips twitched, but the smile didn’t last more than a heartbeat.

“Not tired,” he said with a lift of one shoulder.

“Me neither.”

Percy shrugged and let the door swing farther open, retreating back into his cabin. Nico followed, blinking at the breeze that hit his face from nowhere, smelling of salt and brine--a smell Percy carried with him. He took note of the curiously neat interior. Even Nico knew that Percy had never been a particularly tidy person, and usually his living quarters would quickly become cluttered with random wrappers, the odd news clipping, and other assorted mess. Now, there sat on his bedside table a short stack of drachma, an unassuming ballpoint pen with its cap tucked snugly in place, and nothing else. The floor was bare but for his shoes and a small pile of clothes kicked half underneath his bunk, and his bedclothes were rumpled, hanging partially onto the floor. The shrine to his father was tucked into the far corner, glowing dimly in the dark interior.

“So?” Percy prompted, flinging himself back onto his bed to stare at the ceiling. “That a new trick? Hijacking people’s dreams?”

“Not really,” Nico answered, eyeing Percy cautiously. “But I don’t usually get sucked in accidentally by anyone except the Hypnos demigods.”

Percy scrubbed a hand through his disaster of ebony hair. He’d fallen asleep in shorts and a t-shirt that read AHS Swim Team--it took Nico a second to figure it out with his dyslexia. His camp necklace had gotten turned around in his fitful sleep so that the naked cord was tight against his throat.

“If you’re worried about me going berserk again, don’t be,” Percy said. “I never want to use my powers like that again.”

Nico took that as an invitation to the topic.

“That actually happened, then?” he checked.

“Yeah.” Percy looked like he’d just been tasked with mucking out the pegasus stables. “It happened.”

“You met Alkhys?”

“Oh yeah, we met her alright.” Percy wrapped an arm around his ribcage, cradling a phantom wound. “She has the personality of a wet blanket, you know that?” he said.

Nico raised an eyebrow at him.

“Actually, yes,” he said. “I met her too, when...well, I met her.”

Wonderful. Yes. They were so good at the whole conversation thing. Silence fell over them and they both tried to pretend it wasn’t awkward. Nico scuffed his bare feet on the seemingly weather-beaten driftwood floor and Percy plucked at the edge of his t-shirt. Yes, the very picture of casual.

“Have you talked about it at all?” Nico wondered cautiously. “To Annabeth?”

Percy gave a hollow chuckle and shifted on his bed, sitting up but his shoulders curling inward so heavily you’d think he was holding the weight of the sky on them.

 _He actually has done that, hasn’t he?_ Nico recalled.

“Annabeth was terrified when I did that,” he said hollowly. “There’s no way I could bring it up to her now. I don’t ever want to see that look on her face again.”

That was a sentiment Nico understood all too well. However, Reyna--and _maybe_ Will, just a little--had helped him realize that sometimes a person needs to talk about their problems. Talking could help. It had helped him.

“Okay, maybe not Annabeth,” Nico allowed. However, Percy Jackson had no shortage of friends. “But there must be _someone_. What about Grover?”

“Nico, imagine starting that conversation,” Percy snorted. “ _Hey pal, you know how I fell into Tartarus? Yeah, I met the goddess of misery and went crazy and tried to drown her with her own snot!_ ”

_Well, when you put it like that, it sounds stupid._

“Even _if_ I wanted to, I can’t unload all of Tartarus onto someone that wasn’t there. I don’t want them to know that I--” Percy trailed off hopelessly. “I don’t want to freak anyone out. I’m--I’m fine now, anyway, so--”

“Having nightmares strong enough to yank _me_ in doesn’t seem fine,” Nico interrupted sharply. “I bet the Hypnos campers hate you.”

Percy shrugged and Nico tried to tamp down his annoyance. Percy was used to being the strong one, the protective one, the one that looked after everyone else. It was in his nature to act okay even when he wasn’t, even when no one was convinced. Nico knew that, and he tried to take it into consideration.

“Have you talked to _anyone_ about it?” Nico asked.

Percy snorted.

“Oh sure, I walked around the camp just this morning announcing it on a megaphone. _I misused my powers in such a way that I even terrified my fearless girlfriend!_ ” he said. “Surprised you missed it, or maybe you were still asleep since the sun was up.”

Nico scowled and Percy sighed.

“Like I said, all I’d do is scare everyone. If I never think about that place again, it’ll be too soon.”

Nico understood that sentiment, too.

“When you met Alkhys,” Nico tried a different tactic. “You fought the Curses, right?”

Percy nodded mutely, his skin draining to a color like curdled milk. Or Grover faced with a meat processing plant.

“So many people, Nico. So many people hurting because of me.”

Nico thought. He thought about all the enemies Percy had probably made, all the random people he’d simply ticked off. They all had one thing in common, aside from their obvious hatred of Perseus Jackson.

“You’re feeling guilty over monsters?” Nico said incredulously. Percy pressed his lips together.

“What can I say?” he said, lifting one shoulder before letting it drop again. “When I felt what I did to them, it made me a little sympathetic. Besides...they weren’t all monsters.”

There may as well have been a question mark stamped on Nico’s face.

“One of them…” Percy sighed. “One of the curses was from Calypso. I--I promised to get her off of Ogygia, but I assumed after the gods said they would that...well, that they _would_. I never imagined…”

“What was her curse?” Nico asked, softer than he’d intended.

“She cursed the person I loved never to find me, I think,” Percy said bitterly. “Or be with me. Or something like that. The curse had...had Annabeth...walking around, calling for me, but she couldn’t find me. She thought I’d left…”

Nico’s stomach tightened. He’d been close to wishing ill on Annabeth--and Percy--a few times himself. Now, he was glad he hadn’t. It sounded like something he never truly wanted to put Percy through.

“But…” Percy took a shuddering breath. “When that happened, I...I lost it. Alkhys was trying to push me into Nyx with this--this puddle of poison, and I...gods, I tried to control it. Liquid, right? Close enough to water. I did it. Managed to take control and I started pushing it back towards Alkhys, and something inside me just broke. I _felt_ something crack inside me, like my power was working overtime and didn’t have the right resources. Then, I used her...her…”

Percy’s throat worked spasmodically and his hands clenched into fists. It seemed to take visible effort to uncurl his trembling fingers. Nico waited, already knowing what Percy was going to say but wanting _him_ to say it.

“Body fluids. Her tears and her snot,” he said. “I was using them to suffocate her, I--Nico, if Annabeth hadn’t been there to snap me out of it, I don’t know what would’ve happened. I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

If Nico’s staring bothered Percy, he gave no indication. Maybe because he wasn’t even looking at the son of Hades in favor of the fountain singing merrily in the corner. Nico couldn’t believe what he was hearing--not because it happened, but because _he_ was hearing it. Of course he thought it strange that he hadn’t considered controlling _other_ fluids, but it didn’t strike him as odd that under pressure Percy had tried. The only part he didn’t understand was why Percy would tell him something so personal, something that he was clearly both ashamed and afraid of. Never mind that Nico had seen it in his nightmare.

“Sorry,” Percy said gruffly. Nico blinked. “Didn’t mean to unload all that on you.”

Nico said nothing.

“You should get some sleep,” Percy suggested. His lips twitched up in the ghost of a smile. “You look like Hell warmed over.”

Normally that wouldn’t have made Nico laugh, but the simple fact that it was Percy who had said it, Percy who had shared his experience of the very real Hell, had his own lips curving against his will.

“I’d say you have no idea,” Nico said. “But…”

“Yeah.”

The boys hesitated.

“Thanks...for listening,” Percy said. “But really, I’ll be fine.”

It didn’t escape Nico’s notice that Percy had dropped the pretense that he was _already_ fine.

“Talking helps sometimes,” Nico said with a shrug. Then he turned and let himself out.

And promptly walked headlong into Jason on the porch. He leapt like a startled cat and hastily put some distance between them, eyeing the son of Jupiter cagily.

 _It’s the middle of the night!_ Nico thought. _Is_ anybody _asleep in this stupid place?_

Jason offered a small smile, then glanced at Percy’s door. Nico fought the impulse to speak first; anything he said would sound defensive, and he had nothing to be defensive of.

“Slumber party?” Jason said. Nico raised an eyebrow.

“Obviously,” Nico replied.

Jason smirked at his sardonic tone.

“We want to be here for him,” Jason sighed. “None of us are forgetting what we lost.”

“He knows that,” Nico said. “But this isn’t the first time he’s had to deal with sometihng like this.”

Jason blinked.

“That’s right,” Jason remembered. “You all keep mentioning some battle of Olympus. Was it like this?”

Nico nodded grimly.

“I’d say fighting all the Titans was pretty bad, yeah,” he answered.

“Still, it’d be nice if he’d come out,” Jason said wearily, pushing a hand through his hair. His gold-rimmed glasses glinted in the dim moonlight. “No one’s expecting him to be fine.”

“He’ll come out when he’s ready,” Nico said without meaning to. “He doesn’t stay down. He’s as stubborn as they come.”

Jason’s lips twitched, and for a brief moment Nico allowed himself a small smile.

“I won’t argue with you there,” he said. He glanced at the door. “Think he’ll drown me if I go in?”

“Only one way to find out,” Nico shrugged.

Jason snorted, then knocked once on the door before pushing it open once more. From the inside Nico heard a startled noise.

“Nic--oh. Hey, Jason.”

“Hey yourself,” Jason replied, ducking inside.

“Is anybody asleep tonight, or is it a _one-by-one-sleepover-at-Percy’s_ party?”

“I think we’ve had our fair share of sleepovers,” Jason chuckled.

Nico hesitated before leaving, eyes on the door, which Jason had left ajar. Was it an accident, or had he done it on purpose?

“Just ran into Nico,” Jason said conversationally. “Seemed in a hurry for someone with nowhere else to be.”

“Probably just in a hurry to be somewhere I’m not,” said Percy, and Nico grimaced, inching forward without realizing it.

“Well, I can definitely count the number of times I’ve seen you two in the same room on one hand,” Jason acknowledged. “Although I might’ve just missed him. He has a talent for fading into the background. Have you noticed?”

 _If I had a drachma for every time someone said that,_ Nico thought bitterly. He certainly was never the most important person in the room; far from it. Children of Hades were hardly popular, and something about their father’s affinity did make it easier for them to “fade into the background” than most. It didn’t mean he had to like the fact.

“Does he?” Percy said, voice rising slightly in pitch. “I always thought he was one of the most obvious people in the room. Maybe that’s just ‘cause I’ve known him longer.”

 _What does that even mean?_ Nico wondered.

“That’s possible,” Jason acknowledged. “You two seem to know each other pretty well.”

Percy let out a derisive snort. Nico stared at the crack in the doorway in confusion.

“I used to think so,” Percy said, and Nico could picture him shrugging. “But a lot has changed. We’ve all been through a lot--him even more than us, I think--and I don’t have a clue about most of it. Honestly, I don’t think I ever knew him all that well.”

“Sounds like that bugs you a little, huh?” Jason said sympathetically. His feet scuffed against the floor as he walked, and the creak of the bed informed any potential eavesdroppers--not that Nico was eavesdropping--that he had sat next to Percy on his bunk.

“‘Course it does,” Percy mumbled, so low Nico almost missed it. “He’s not the same kid I saved at that military school, and it’s my fault he changed so much and grew up so fast.”

“Your fault?” Jason echoed. “Perce, it’s kind of an occupational hazard of being a demigod. None of us got an exactly trouble-free childhood.”

“You don’t know the story,” Percy sighed.

Nico found himself on the balls of his feet, leaning toward the door, without realizing how exactly he had gotten there. By the gods, he was even holding his breath! Cheeks burning, he hastily straightened up out of his curious pose and shook his head viciously.

“Sure, you told us all when we were on our way to rescue him,” Jason argued. Nico stiffened. “You brought him and his sister to Camp Halfblood, then his sister went with you on a quest to search for Annabeth.”

“Yeah.”

“She died on the quest, didn’t she?” Jason continued cautiously.

“Yeah.” In that one word, Percy’s voice matched the feeling in Nico’s heart: hard, cold. Hurt.

“And then he ran away?” Jason checked. Nico clenched his jaw.

“That’s the simple version,” Percy said.

“What’s the full version?”

More silence. The night air flowed lazily, ruffling the grass and Nico’s hair, and the sounds of the patrol harpies nearby fluttered down like feathers. At the partially closed door, Nico stood like a statue, unsure if he should go now and save himself just a little bit of heartbreak or stay and find out more than he had ever truly wanted to know. Once he might’ve jumped at the chance to hear Percy talk about how they’d first met, but the time had come and gone.

Just when he was sure Percy wasn’t going to answer, the boy in the cabin spoke.

“When--when we heard the prophecy for the quest,” he started quietly. “I...had some doubts. The prophecy said we had to take a group of five--that _never_ happened, quests are always supposed to be done in threes--and told us from the start that some of us would die. I didn’t want to take her, but Bianca was probably one of the toughest volunteers--she’d joined Artemis’ Hunt, so she could only die in battle. Before we all left, I promised Nico that I’d bring her back. I promised that I’d keep her safe. I wish you could’ve seen him back then, he was...well, happy, for a start. I promised I’d bring her back and that was that, he was a hundred percent sure I would. I don’t know where his confidence came from, but I was jealous. Still am.”

 _Percy Jackson, jealous of a son of Hades,_ Nico thought drily. _That’s it. The world really is coming to an end._

“When we lost her…” Percy said in scarcely more than a whisper. “Gods, she was brave. She sabotaged this gigantic, nasty automaton from the _inside_ , but…”

“She didn’t get out in time,” Jason guessed.

“It was my idea,” Percy croaked. “It was my idea, and she went along with it, and I was so _stupid_! We were in the desert, and the prophecy said that we’d lose someone in the land without rain, and I let her--”

“It sounds to me like she made her own decision, Percy,” Jason said, his voice hardening a fraction. “Whether it was your idea or not doesn’t matter. I’m sure she understood the risk and figured it was worth it. She probably was betting on you to look after her little brother.”

It sounded like Percy choked on something caught between a laugh and a sob. Nico tried to swallow and failed. He’d...never heard the whole story. He’d never wanted to.

“Yeah, well, look what a great job of that I did,” he said bitterly. “We finally got back to Camp Halfblood, and everyone else was celebrating and I had to go and tell this kid that...that his sister wasn’t coming back. That I broke my promise and I was sorry, but Bianca was gone. The look on his face, Jason…”

It was probably similar to the look Nico wore now. Sick, disbelieving. For a long time he’d done his best not to think about Percy, not to think about what all of these things had done to _him_ , preferring simply to blame him for letting them happen. Even after he understood that he was being unreasonable, he couldn’t bring himself to consider Percy’s pain. And now he was hearing it, and he’d been right not to wonder.

It hurt. It hurt every bit as much as his own pain and even more. Knowing how deeply Percy had taken that broken promise to heart and knowing how it was almost entirely his, Nico’s, fault. Hearing the raw emotion in Percy’s voice even now, even though what happened was years ago, was more than Nico had ever anticipated dealing with.

“He got mad of course, yelled and cried and called me a liar. I don’t blame him. Then these skeletons came out of nowhere, and I tried to protect him from them, but he ended up saving me instead. The son of Hades thing comes in handy when you need to kill dead things.” A brave stab at humor that died the moment silence fell. “That was when he ran away. Dropped this thing--a figurine from this game he used to play.”

“Mythomagic, right?” Jason guessed.

In spite of circumstance, Nico flushed darkly with mortification at the mention of the old collecting card game he’d played as a kid. If he never heard the name of it again, it would be too soon.

“Yeah, Mythomagic,” Percy said, and he let out a slightly more believable chuckle. “He was obsessed with it. When we met--after we dealt with the manticore--he had so many rapid-fire questions because of it, I couldn’t keep up. He knew more about Greek mythology than I did.”

Nico absolutely did not feel a flicker of pride at that.

“I remember him asking if I was really good at surfing, since I was the son of the sea god,” Percy chuckled.

The satisfaction died in Nico’s chest and was replaced by embarassment once again. Even so, there was a part of him that couldn’t believe Percy remembered something so trivial.

“Well? Are you?” Jason prompted.

“I still haven’t tried,” Percy confessed. His mood grew pensive again. “Another promise I haven’t made good on.”

“You said he dropped a figurine,” Jason said quickly. “Do you remember what it was?”

Percy made a noise that might have been meant to be a laugh, but it sounded entirely too weary.

“Yeah, I remember. It was his Darth Vader.”

“...so...Hades?” Jason guessed after a solid thirty seconds of silence.

 _That was an awful joke_ , Nico thought irreverently.

“Yeah, Hades. Actually…” Percy trailed off hesitantly. “I, uh, tried to give it back. The next time we saw him. But he wouldn’t take it.”

“Wasn’t that during the disaster with the labyrinth?” Jason wondered.

Disaster indeed. Hardly one of Nico’s finer moments.

“Yeah, during the disaster with the labyrinth,” Percy repeated, a reluctant smile in his voice. “I, uh, still actually have it...The figure. Somewhere around here, I think…”

Nico felt his insides fall abruptly away, and he had a sudden urge to throw up.

 _He kept it. After all this time, he kept_ that _?_

He turned on his heel and hurried back to his own cabin, pausing only to duck into the shadow of Cabin 7 when a harpy passed overhead. As he slipped back into his own bunk and tried to find sleep, Nico had a feeling that his and Percy’s heart-to-heart wasn’t quite over yet.


	2. Chapter 2

Nico didn’t run into Percy the next day. He did catch glimpses of him every now and then, usually arm-in-arm with Annabeth. However, he didn’t think it wise to interrupt while they worked on repairing the camp and fixing up the demigods that had been injured. Besides, he had his hands full with a certain son of Apollo during the day that demanded most, if not all, of his time “helping” in the infirmary. Not that Nico minded terribly.

Still, the longer they went without talking properly, the more Nico was certain Percy was actively avoiding him. Once upon a time that would’ve stung, but knowing that the reason had very little to do with Nico himself made it little more than annoying. The son of Poseidon couldn’t evade him forever, and his opportunity to corner Percy arrived later that evening as the demigods began dispersing after dinner. Annabeth had something to do with the rest of the Athena kids and Percy, having no other cabin mates, was left to his own devices. Which meant there was only one place he was likely to go.

By the time Nico managed to slink away from Will’s watchful eye, Percy had left his table. Confident in his destination, Nico made his way toward the lake, trying to look as casual as an underfed child of the Underworld could look. He arrived just in time to see Percy wading out into the water, and he didn’t have to wonder what the boy’s goal was. He hastened closer, equal parts relieved and frustrated that Percy didn’t seem to be moving in any sort of hurry.

“Percy,” he said quietly when he figured he was within earshot.

The boy in the water jumped--the splash sounded too loud to two demigods trying to avoid being noticed--and whipped around, sea green eyes landing on Nico in a mixture of confusion and alarm. He fell into a fighter’s stance automatically, and waist-deep in lakewater it would have looked comical to some. However Nico froze, not wanting to invite a geyser of water in his face if Percy attacked before his brain caught up with his body, but after a moment he guessed he wasn’t in danger of a dowsing. The other boy relaxed as well, shoulders slumping.

“Oh,” Percy said. “It’s you, Nico.”

_ Don’t sound so excited _ . Nico wanted to roll his eyes.

“What are you doing out here?” was all he said.

Percy raised an eyebrow at him.

“Thought I’d take a dip,” he said, tone impressively nonchalant as he gestured to the water.

“You’d risk hypothermia for a late night swim?” Nico said skeptically.

“Nothing like semi-freezing water to send you off to slumber,” Percy said. His lips twitched faintly. “Besides, it’s not like I’m gonna get wet. What about you? The coffin bed not to your liking, Drac?”

Nico almost laughed. Gods, sometimes he was afraid Percy could read his mind. Or maybe he simply had functioning eyes; the Hades cabin certainly looked more like a crypt than a place anybody would  _ want _ to sleep.

“Maybe when the sun rises,” Nico offered.

The levity didn’t last. As Percy continued to stand half-submerged in cold lake water and Nico continued to shift his weight from foot to foot on the bank, the weight of silence quickly settled back over both of them.

“Well,” Percy broke the silence first, making Nico jump like a startled cat. “If you don’t mind, I’ve got some Nereids to keep company.”

He turned away from Nico and tensed, ready to duck below the surface.

To Nico’s credit, he didn’t start back for the cabins once his--friend? Unwilling acquaintance?--vanished. Not so much to his credit, he remained where he was when Percy disappeared into the water, not creating so much as a ripple across the surface. He continued to stand like an idiot on the edge of the water, weighing options he didn’t  _ really _ have. He’d been running from this for too long. He and Percy needed to talk. About a lot of things.

With a self-suffering groan Nico kicked off his shoes and shrugged out of his jacket, tossing them in a pile behind him. He grit his teeth as he waded out, the cold water soaking into his jeans. He’d never been a great swimmer, but hopefully the son of the sea god--or possibly Poseidon himself--would be willing to give him a little assistance. 

_ More likely Poseidon than him _ , Nico thought morosely.  _ I don’t like those odds very much. _

Without thinking any further, Nico dove in. The water was every bit as cold against his face as it was against his legs and his eyes protested being open in it. Still he tried to get his bearings and swim toward the bottom, where he knew Percy would be hiding. It was slow going, and he wasn’t fond of being without air, but he caught sight of the bottom in what felt like too short a time. Specifically, he caught sight of a figure sitting in the sand, arms around his knees and staring at him in disbelief.

Percy said something when Nico was close enough to see, but lip-reading was not among his skillset as a child of the underworld. He came to float in front of the other boy, arms crossed over his thin chest and a glower on his face that probably looked more petulant than intimidating. Realizing that Nico couldn’t hear him, Percy frowned and jabbed his finger up toward the surface. The light filtering down was weak, but not so weak that Nico couldn’t see Percy’s green eyes flash in an expression usually reserved for telling his friends to stand back. Nico wasn’t sure what to think about the other boy acting protective, but he shook his head and continued to glare.

It was hard. Holding his breath hurt his chest, and pressure and the stifling sense of darkness he couldn’t travel through reminded him vividly of the hellish jar he’d been trapped inside. Unable to breathe, having only sour pomegranate seeds to keep him alive for days. No light, no air. Alone as he always was and without comfort, but forced to recognize it in such close quarters. The memories were quite as stifling as the experience, made all the worse by Percy’s ghostly visage in the watery moonlight, the person that had invaded his thoughts far too often as he tried to maintain his Death Trance. It was enough to shake his nerve. Enough that he questioned why he was making himself relive that experience when all he had to do was wait until tomorrow, when he and Percy could talk above water.

However, Nico could be about as stubborn as Percy when he put his mind to it. While he was hardly thrilled to be underwater, he was not about to surface before Percy. He had a feeling that if they put this off any longer, it would only get harder to bring up later. Besides, if there was one thing he knew about the son of the sea god, it was that when it came to people he cared about, he sucked at playing chicken. Whether Nico was counted among that number remained to be seen, and honestly it would’ve been easier on him if the other boy just let him pass out and float to the surface.

He didn’t. With an unmistakable roll of his eyes and a defeated sag of his shoulders, Percy relented. Rather than being propelled back to the surface, however, Nico found thousands of tiny bubbles zooming toward him from all sides, merging together until he was encased in his own large air bubble. Absurdly he was reminded of  _ Charlie and the Chocolate Factory _ , even though Charlie and his grandpa hadn’t actually been  _ in _ any bubbles.

“Usually a guy can sit on the bottom of a lake in peace when he wants to be left alone,” Percy said when the bubble grew large enough to fit them both.

“What exactly are you doing down here?” Nico demanded. “Aside from being an idiot?”

Rather than get defensive, which would have been his usual response and would have put Nico somewhat more at ease, Percy shrugged. He sat cross-legged on the bottom of the bubble, which was more of a dome that covered a small area of the lake bottom. Nico remained standing. When Percy had created the bubble, apparently he’d also dispelled the water that should have soaked him through.

“After Jason caught you leaving my cabin, everyone seemed to take that as a come-one, come-all invitation,” Percy said. “Cabin turned into the Grand Central Station of compassion and sympathy and the  _ we’re all here for you _ ’s and  _ we did the right thing. _ As if ‘the right thing’ changes how many people died.”

Nico grimaced. He’d too often been on the receiving end of such useless pity, so he could understand wanting to escape it. Granted, the Underworld was his usual hideout, not the bottom of the ocean. Not that it had ever brought him much solace.

“For once, I’d kinda just like to be mortal,” Percy sighed. “Get to...cope. In peace, maybe. Not have to keep trucking along for the sake of the world.”

“Seeing as we’re at the bottom of a lake, maybe wish for something that wouldn’t be inviting divine intervention?” Nico suggested. 

The gods, while often lax on actually assisting their copious offspring, were often all too willing to make a hard situation worse, a fact all demigods knew. Had Percy not been in such a closed-off state, he would’ve reconsidered his words.

“They’re not listening,” Percy said, and the dismissiveness in his tone might have been what unnerved Nico the most. While Percy had never shown a particular fondness for the gods, he’d always been ready to acknowledge them and their overbearing presence. “They’re too busy with themselves, aren’t they?”

“Sure…”

“So?” Percy prompted. 

“We need to talk,” he said.

“Oh, is that why you followed me all the way down here?” Percy said in surprise. “I figured you just fancied chatting up some fish.”

Nico narrowed his eyes at Percy, but he took a slow, deep breath, and tried to focus on the reason he was there.

“About what happened with Alkhys,” he started. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Despite how level Nico managed to keep his voice--a feat he was rather proud of--Percy flinched.

“Nico, I don’t want to talk about it,” he mumbled.

“Well you need to.”

“Shut up.”

Nico very nearly assaulted Percy, but his companion wasn’t even looking at him anymore. He was glaring balefully at a large fish that was hovering near his head, almost breaching the bubble’s thin wall.

“What did it say?” Nico wondered, distracted in spite of his best efforts.

“Huh?” said Percy, looking back around. “Oh, nothing, really.”

“Then why tell it to shut up?”

Percy ducked his head, scratching the back of his neck.

“Because it was annoying?” he suggested. 

Nico didn’t bite.

“Because it was singing an awful version of  _ Camptown Ladies _ ?”

_ Nice try _ , thought Nico, lips twitching.

“Every version of  _ Camptown Ladies _ is awful,” he said.

“Nah, Grover totally kills it on his pipes,” Percy quipped. “Once he played it with Madonna on stage and the entire audience went on a rampage.”

_ Probably to stop the music. _

“Don’t worry about it,” Percy sighed when Nico still wasn’t buying into his excuse. “It’s not important. It never is with these stupid fish.”

The fish bobbed in the water, then turned and jetted away into the murk.

“Back at you, buddy!” Percy shouted after it.

They lapsed back into silence. Percy didn’t seem inclined to cooperate with Nico, and Nico wondered if it was because Percy thought Nico didn’t understand. That Nico didn’t know how terrified he was of his own powers, or what that felt like. That annoyed Nico, who Percy should have known better than anyone could relate. Who on earth would understand fearing one’s powers more than a child of Hades?

Without realizing what he was doing, Nico told Percy about Michael. About his own power consuming him, drowning not only his enemy but his comrades in his fear and his fury as he sent that sniveling Roman to the Fields of Asphodel. He didn’t mean to, and he wasn’t sure why he divulged information that would surely only serve to make Percy even more wary of him, but he did, and the look on Percy’s face changed. At least Percy seemed to be reminded that Nico had his own problems with his powers.

“At least no one died during your tantrum,” Nico finished.

For a moment Percy looked as if he wanted to reach out to Nico, to touch his shoulder or his hand. There was something like fear in his eyes, but it wasn’t the fear Nico expected. Not fear of him, but fear for him. When Percy throat, his voice was tight with shame.

“I--I’m sorry,” Percy said, and the hand that he’d half-lifted fell back to his side. Nico stared at it.

“Quit saying that,” he said, but there was no venom in his voice. 

The admission left him feeling uncomfortably bare. Without a doubt his voice had communicated loud and clear how scared of that instant he was, how scared in that moment he’d been of fading away. However, despite the uncomfortable vulnerability, the weight on his shoulders seemed to lessen and he found himself sitting just a little straighter. Nico hadn’t realized how badly that incident had been eating at him.

“Have you even moved on from the Battle of Olympus?” Nico wondered.

Even as he asked, he knew it was a stupid question. Most of the time, Percy was fine. Most of the time Percy wasn’t even thinking about the battle. But that one in particular had cut him deeply for a number of reasons. The main one…

“How am I supposed to move on from that?” Percy demanded. “ _ Happy birthday Percy, everyone’s dead except for you. _ ”

Nico closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. How could Percy be several years older than him and still act so naive?

“I wouldn’t know,” he snapped, patience wearing thin. “I don’t have a lot of experience in people willing to die for me.”

Silence slammed into them. He couldn’t help it, it just sort of slipped out. Percy cringed as if Nico had run him through and he wished he could’ve taken it back. Of all the times to feel bitter about feeling like an outcast and of all the people to take his frustration out on, this situation applied to none of the above. Percy raked a hand through his disaster of raven hair and the water around them began to churn. Unease slithered into Nico’s stomach. If he’d made Percy angry, he wasn’t sure he was in a position to defend himself from him at the bottom of the lake, and there wasn’t much in the way of legitimate shadow for him to slip away through. He looked away, jaw working furiously.

“I’m sorry.”

Nico wasn’t sure he’d heard it. Not the first time. Though the silence was deafening, he couldn’t be sure that his ears weren’t simply playing tricks on him. He didn’t want to look around at Percy, but he did automatically. The boy--man? How old was he again?--had a dark sadness across his face adding decades to his appearance. His eyes were dark and stormy, too sad, too haunted for someone his age as he looked at Nico, and though Nico was sure there was nothing whole left in him he felt something inside break just a little more.

“I’m sorry,” Percy said again, voice cracking.

Nico’s hands trembled.

“What for?” he demanded.

“Everything,” the older boy croaked. “For not treating you better--not doing better by you. I’m sorry I stopped trying. You were a better friend to me than I deserved, with Bob, and with bringing the others when--when we fell, and I just--I never even  _ thought _ about it until Bob said you visited him, and then he said you told him I was a friend, and I just--”

“Don’t take it so personal,” Nico said. “I knew he’d be helpful, alright? Don’t look so much into it.”

“Whatever,” Percy said dully. “You were a good friend to him, you helped me  _ again _ , and I just...I keep failing everyone. You...Annabeth…”

“So you messed up once,” Nico said, trying to sound aloof. “Big deal.”

“All I do is mess up,” Percy said with a shake of his head. “Everyone here is so amazing, but I’ve never been able to do anything myself. I always rely on Annabeth’s smarts, on Jason’s leadership, everything I can that takes the pressure off me. I let so many people down…Calypso, and Luke...so many people were miserable and died because of me.”

“You can’t be responsible for the entire world,” Nico snapped, flinching at his own tone.

He couldn’t say he knew what it felt like to blame yourself, really, when things went wrong. He had a bad habit of needing to put the blame on someone else, give himself someone to hate that wasn’t himself. Percy had always been his go-to for that, and looking back on it Nico felt another stab of shame that he had done it for so long while Percy carried the weight of all his own burdens and those of his loved ones.

Percy chuckled once without humor.

“Funny that you say that,” he said, looking up at the surface. “You used to think I was.”

Nico stiffened.

“Yeah, well, I was a kid--what do you expect?” Nico said, chest tightening. 

“A kid…” Percy echoed. “Yeah, I guess. But it’s my fault you had to grow up, too.”

“Now you just sound stupid.”

Percy shook his head, refusing to meet Nico’s eyes.

“I brought you and Bianca to Camp Halfblood,” he said. “I took your sister on my quest. I’m the one that came back without her. It’s my fault she’s gone.”

The world came to a screeching halt. Bianca’s name was a winter wind, leaving the tiny bubble iced over and desolate. It had been a long time since Nico had talked about his blood sister, longer still since he’d heard her name on another person’s lips, and had he heard it from Percy a year ago he would have been enraged. Not so long ago, Nico would have agreed with him. Like Percy, he’d blamed the son of the sea god for the death of his sister. The boy had promised to bring her back safe and sound, and he’d returned without her, and Nico ran away, convinced he hated everything about Percy and intent on never forgiving him.

“Sorry,” Percy mumbled. Nico was seriously starting to hate that word. “It’s just…”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Judging from the stricken look on Percy’s face, Nico might have slapped him. His expression of shock was comical enough to suggest that he’d been smacked in the face with a live fish and that, Nico thought, meant he had actually said something right. Plenty of people must have told Percy that he wasn’t responsible for what happened, but it was  _ Nico _ saying it this time. Nico, who had the most reason and the only one with the right to blame Percy for what happened.

“You really have grown up,” Percy said thickly.

“At least one of us has,” Nico said, mouth quirked up at the corner.

After a second, Percy smiled as well. This Percy was better. Less heroic, more human and sincere.

“You think we could start over?” Percy asked hopefully.

Years of frustration flashed through Nico’s mind in the span of a heartbeat, frustration and longing and bitterness and deep, deep sorrow. Years of resenting the people and the world around him. Years lost, wasted, ignoring the truth that the world wasn’t the one rejecting him but that he was refusing to take part in it. There was only one answer Nico could give, and he gave it while holding out a pale but steady hand.

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Nico di Angelo.”


End file.
